Focus On Adoption Deplores DOS’ position on Guatemalan Adoptions Today, September 25, 2007, DOS announced several reasons why prospective adoptive families should not commence an adoption from Guatemala. Not least among them was the purported intention by unnamed Guatemalan officials that the Guatemalan government intends to ignore the clear requirements of the Convention and intends to disallow in-process cases from proceeding under existing law.
Any first year law student can read the Convention and immediately grasp why this “information” is, at best, misguided and, more likely, part of the consistent pattern of the existing (and soon-to-depart) Guatemalan administration’s open hostility to constitutionally protected notarial adoptions in Guatemala.
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Miriam on September 27th 2007 in News
September 2007
WARNING: The U.S. Department of State urges American citizens not to commence an adoption process from Guatemala at this time. Fundamental changes in Guatemalan and U.S. adoption law will take effect over the next six months.
These changes are likely to inject considerable uncertainty into the adoption process
Guatemala has stated that it will become a Hague Convention country on January 1, 2008. Guatemalan officials have informed us that Guatemala plans to require cases pending or filed after December 31, 2007 to meet Hague standards, even if the adoption procedures commenced before that date. They have also informed us they will not process adoptions for non-Hague member countries after December 31. We understand this to mean that Guatemala will stop processing adoptions to the United States beginning January 1, 2008, until U.S. accession to the Hague Convention takes effect. Given the average time frame for ompleting an adoption in Guatemala, cases started now cannot be completed before January 1, 2008.
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Miriam on September 27th 2007 in News
